1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:14,040 This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4,134 for Thursday the 18th of January 2024. 2 00:00:14,040 --> 00:00:18,120 Today's show is entitled Sleep Tips. 3 00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:22,720 It is hosted by Operator and is about 11 minutes long. 4 00:00:22,720 --> 00:00:25,560 It carries an explicit flag. 5 00:00:25,560 --> 00:00:40,920 This summary is, go with Operator on his journey to Sleepy Town. 6 00:00:40,920 --> 00:00:44,160 You are listening to a show from the Reserve queue. 7 00:00:44,160 --> 00:00:49,200 We are airing it now because we had free slots that were not filled. 8 00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:55,080 This is a community project that needs listeners to contribute shows in order to survive. 9 00:00:55,080 --> 00:00:58,080 Please consider recording a show for Hacker Public Radio. 10 00:00:58,080 --> 00:01:06,680 Hello everyone, I am Olga Duna of the City of Hacker Public Radio with your host, Operator. 11 00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:13,640 So today I am going to be speaking about Sleep in Sleep Optimization. 12 00:01:13,640 --> 00:01:18,760 While back probably, I want to say it's been probably a 10 year saga of having issues and 13 00:01:18,760 --> 00:01:25,640 difficulty sleeping and trying to bring you on that journey to where I'm at today. 14 00:01:25,640 --> 00:01:32,720 So I think about probably 10 years ago, 11 years ago, I was doing consulting, traveling 15 00:01:32,720 --> 00:01:40,880 a fair amount, staying up odd hours or work, doing after hours testing for security and 16 00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:44,400 organizations and doing different time zones. 17 00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:49,840 And I think that had some to do with it, of why I had issues sleeping. 18 00:01:49,840 --> 00:01:59,000 I also think, mainly it's around drinking lots of alcohol and drinking and causing that 19 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:04,360 part and then again stress with work or work life balance type of deal. 20 00:02:04,360 --> 00:02:11,600 So I started having a problem probably back, like I said, 10 years ago, I would have this 21 00:02:11,600 --> 00:02:17,680 need to just wake up and my wife called it witching hours like 3 o'clock and the more you 22 00:02:17,680 --> 00:02:23,920 talk to people, the more you realize that not a lot of people get the right amount of sleep 23 00:02:23,920 --> 00:02:26,720 and it gets worse in different regions. 24 00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:33,720 But for me, I started to realize that I was waking up around 3 or 4 o'clock and then from 25 00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:39,840 then on it was more just kind of flopping around and I remember seeing commercials late 26 00:02:39,840 --> 00:02:51,640 at 9 o'clock, and then I realized I actually had it almost like the sensation of threats 27 00:02:51,640 --> 00:02:58,240 almost where you have the sensation of if you have to scratch your nose or something like 28 00:02:58,240 --> 00:03:00,320 that, but you can't scratch it. 29 00:03:00,320 --> 00:03:03,280 So you have to constantly move your legs. 30 00:03:03,280 --> 00:03:09,320 It's an anxiety kind of feeling or if you've ever been antsy that same kind of thing. 31 00:03:09,440 --> 00:03:10,440 It won't go away. 32 00:03:10,440 --> 00:03:17,520 You can do exercises, some people say the bicycles were work, for me it was kind of holding 33 00:03:17,520 --> 00:03:25,800 my legs up for a long period of time and using my muscles, the leg muscles and trying 34 00:03:25,800 --> 00:03:28,600 to tire them out and it would usually give me some relief for a while. 35 00:03:28,600 --> 00:03:35,040 So that ran for about, I want to say a year or two, on and off, having issues sleep being 36 00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:40,200 out with sometimes draining, to help sleep, that would make things kind of worse, eventually 37 00:03:40,200 --> 00:03:45,920 ended up talking to my doctor, my doctor of course just gave me pills, which was sleeping 38 00:03:45,920 --> 00:03:46,920 pill. 39 00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:52,840 It wasn't ambient, I'm quite yet, it was something else as I was ever, it was like 40 00:03:52,840 --> 00:03:55,160 a tranquilizer essentially. 41 00:03:55,160 --> 00:03:56,160 That didn't really do much. 42 00:03:56,160 --> 00:04:01,160 He gave me Gavipentin, like a 500 milligram Gavipentin, that didn't do much. 43 00:04:01,160 --> 00:04:05,320 He told me to up the Gavipentin, I didn't feel great with that and I tried it, didn't 44 00:04:05,320 --> 00:04:09,820 help, tried Benadryl, tried every kind of over the counter thing, I tried showers, 45 00:04:09,820 --> 00:04:16,840 I tried baths, I tried, you know, bar to soap, but the foot of your bed, milk exercise 46 00:04:16,840 --> 00:04:17,840 before exercise. 47 00:04:17,840 --> 00:04:21,440 After I tried every single possible combination of anything, the only thing that seemed 48 00:04:21,440 --> 00:04:26,640 to make it worse was drinking, a fair amount, and or staying up irregular hours and not 49 00:04:26,640 --> 00:04:30,360 having that normal cadence. 50 00:04:30,360 --> 00:04:37,240 So fast word, I ended up taking a break from all of that because I couldn't sleep anyways 51 00:04:37,240 --> 00:04:43,040 and then about a year after that, I came back and said, you know, I'm still having issues 52 00:04:43,040 --> 00:04:44,920 and he put me on ambient. 53 00:04:44,920 --> 00:04:52,360 That seemed to kind of work for about a year and realized it was kind of not really helping 54 00:04:52,360 --> 00:05:00,000 me, it would kind of make me forgive that I had a whole night, and it would kind of 55 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:03,680 kind of knock me out. 56 00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:07,840 And I would have date and you hear people about ambient and they don't want to touch it 57 00:05:07,840 --> 00:05:11,440 because you essentially date trip, you'll wake up in the middle of the night and you'll 58 00:05:11,440 --> 00:05:16,080 do something crazy and what I would do is if I had problem sleeping, wake up in the middle 59 00:05:16,080 --> 00:05:20,480 of the night and I would down like, I'll even drink wine and I would down like a little 60 00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:27,400 bottle of like mini wine or something or just wake up and, you know, take a few shots 61 00:05:27,440 --> 00:05:31,120 of something or something and then go to sleep or I would wake up and have a full 62 00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:34,040 long conversation with my wife or something. 63 00:05:34,040 --> 00:05:39,400 So that got to be kind of, you know, I never did anything dangerous necessarily, some people 64 00:05:39,400 --> 00:05:44,120 talk about driving or doing crazy things and I never did anything like that, but I realized 65 00:05:44,120 --> 00:05:48,160 it's like, you know, after I woke up on morning and there was like, you know, a mini 66 00:05:48,160 --> 00:05:53,000 bottle of wine next to my office because I sleep in the office because I'd flop around. 67 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:56,360 So of course you can't sleep with another prudent partner if you're flopping around 68 00:05:56,520 --> 00:06:00,840 night so I'd sleep in the other room and yeah, when I woke up and there was like a, you know, 69 00:06:00,840 --> 00:06:06,520 a bottle of, you know, mini wine next to my bed, I realized, okay, this is not great. 70 00:06:07,400 --> 00:06:13,480 I think I took a break from ambient and I tried my routine, which is, you know, no, no sugars or 71 00:06:13,480 --> 00:06:21,080 bed, nothing, no stimulants before bed, being regular about my sleep, regular exercise, not 72 00:06:21,160 --> 00:06:26,280 drinking, not doing fake sugars, all that stuff seemed to kind of help. 73 00:06:26,280 --> 00:06:30,040 I don't know about the fake sugar, but I know caffeine, what calls me issues. 74 00:06:31,080 --> 00:06:37,880 So I quit all that and I tried anything that would, you know, induce those types of reactions 75 00:06:37,880 --> 00:06:44,440 to flopping around. I would, I would kill. But for me, eventually kind of would get it 76 00:06:44,440 --> 00:06:47,880 and check for a while and then it would kind of come back and it was almost season the way it would 77 00:06:47,960 --> 00:06:54,680 come back. So it I realized, you know, they came back with a vengeance and I was talking 78 00:06:54,680 --> 00:06:59,720 the neighbors down the street and they said, they suggested two things, some earpacks and one of 79 00:06:59,720 --> 00:07:08,600 the things, one of them is a primary care, I think, and the other one was a pharmacist. So they're 80 00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:15,880 just like, well, take this drug and I had been pretty steady from then. I actually before that, 81 00:07:15,960 --> 00:07:22,280 there was a time where I evaped T.H.C. and that worked like a truck. It would, you know, 82 00:07:22,280 --> 00:07:27,800 I would just do one little vape before I went to sleep and it would knock me out forever. As long 83 00:07:27,800 --> 00:07:32,600 as I wanted to sleep, I could sleep and it wasn't a groggy seat. It was a comfortable, you know, 84 00:07:32,600 --> 00:07:38,760 I slept like I was supposed to sleep. So that can work for a lot of people too. Not your 85 00:07:39,720 --> 00:07:46,440 CBD oil. I did try that. I tried legit CBD oil. You know, the things like that, but nothing worked 86 00:07:46,440 --> 00:07:53,720 like a regular like T.H.C. card. So that's one option, but for me later on, I started to still wake 87 00:07:53,720 --> 00:08:00,520 up in the middle of the night and had the RLS symptoms. Right? And then I'd have to vape again. 88 00:08:00,520 --> 00:08:05,240 And then I realized, okay, well, you know, I'm kind of self-medicating. It's working and it worked 89 00:08:05,240 --> 00:08:11,000 for about a year, but then I wake up and kind of start to build tolerance to it. And like any 90 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:17,480 drug you'll sometimes most of the time end up building some kind of tolerance to it. So I switched to 91 00:08:17,480 --> 00:08:23,080 the mirror packs and I'm taking the lowest dose of mirror packs and that is helping me sleep a lot 92 00:08:23,080 --> 00:08:29,880 and I'm trying to stay normal with my exercise, sleeping habits are a big part of it. Not drinking 93 00:08:30,120 --> 00:08:36,520 kind of at all. And if I do drink, I'll drink a little bit or I'll drink a line where I won't 94 00:08:36,520 --> 00:08:42,120 drink at all because it's not really worth it to chance it for me to drink a little bit and then go to sleep 95 00:08:42,120 --> 00:08:47,320 and then usually I'm fine like the first day or two and for whatever reason if I have like two or three 96 00:08:47,320 --> 00:08:52,280 drinks, I'll be fine that night, but the next night it will catch up with me or the night 97 00:08:52,280 --> 00:08:57,240 after that it will catch up with me. So I'll have problem sleeping, you know, a couple of days after 98 00:08:57,320 --> 00:09:04,520 for whatever reason. They also talk about the skinny rhythm so I try to wake up and go outside 99 00:09:05,240 --> 00:09:13,240 sit out front with the natural light and drink my tea and listen to my podcast. So having that 100 00:09:13,240 --> 00:09:19,800 regular cadence of the skinny rhythm thing helps. I'm hoping, but here recently I've been 101 00:09:20,600 --> 00:09:26,760 kind of still waking up a little bit at night, but more because of stress because some things 102 00:09:26,760 --> 00:09:33,800 have changed at work in home so I think that's changed but some things have lifted in that space. 103 00:09:33,800 --> 00:09:39,480 So I think I'm at a relatively low stress level in general, but a lot of times people can't sleep 104 00:09:39,480 --> 00:09:45,080 because of stress. Reducing your stress is probably the biggest thing you can do as far as I can tell 105 00:09:46,520 --> 00:09:50,920 and or, you know, get a second opinion, get a third opinion. Keep trying, don't give up 106 00:09:51,880 --> 00:09:58,120 like anything any ailment that you have, get a second opinion. But anyways, I hope that didn't 107 00:09:58,120 --> 00:10:04,280 put y'all to sleep and if it did and you were trying to sleep, then great. But, you know, get 108 00:10:04,280 --> 00:10:11,160 second opinions, ask around, try something else, don't give up, don't live with not sleep. 109 00:10:11,160 --> 00:10:16,280 If you have to, you know, vape for a year or vape for how long or if you have to, you know, 110 00:10:16,360 --> 00:10:21,880 if you have to take ambient for however long just to get you some sleep for a mile until you 111 00:10:21,880 --> 00:10:26,040 can figure out what works for you, right? Medication, the right balance of exercise, diet, 112 00:10:26,600 --> 00:10:33,320 whatever, um, that, that, that works. It's not, it didn't all be y'all. If someone, you know, 113 00:10:33,320 --> 00:10:37,720 there's a lot of pushback around, you know, taking a pill or taking a medication for something. 114 00:10:37,720 --> 00:10:42,600 Um, it doesn't have to be the solution, right? You can take a medication for a short period of time 115 00:10:43,400 --> 00:10:48,360 and it'll be relatively okay. I mean, honestly, everything causes cancer anyway. So, you know, 116 00:10:48,360 --> 00:10:51,880 if you're going to complain that, oh, you're on ambient, oh, we all don't think that stuff. 117 00:10:51,880 --> 00:10:58,440 Or that's bad. Or whatever the drug is, it's not a lifelong thing. Um, your, you might be, 118 00:10:59,560 --> 00:11:05,240 you might be a, you know, left with some kind of disposition, some sort forever and have to 119 00:11:05,240 --> 00:11:09,240 take some kind of medication. Um, but in general, there's usually something you can, 120 00:11:10,200 --> 00:11:16,040 a tutor back and forth, try it. You can try one drug for some certain amount of time and try another drug 121 00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:19,160 and switch back and forth and you build tolerances and stuff. Um, anyways, 122 00:11:20,040 --> 00:11:25,720 hope that helps out, um, you know, stay vigilant, get some sleep, focus on, 123 00:11:26,920 --> 00:11:33,320 good practices, good hygiene, um, get exercise. That's a big one. Um, walk out, walk, walk, walk. 124 00:11:33,320 --> 00:11:36,840 At least once a day, I walk up and down the stairs. They're air conditioned here at the office 125 00:11:37,800 --> 00:11:43,400 and I walk with my spouse, um, you know, around noon now, because it's not tight, 126 00:11:43,400 --> 00:11:48,360 but when it gets hot, I would walk. We would walk earlier in the morning. So anyways, 127 00:11:48,360 --> 00:11:53,000 I hope that helps out and, uh, a lot of it goes. 128 00:11:59,400 --> 00:12:04,280 You have been listening to Hecker Public Radio at Hecker Public Radio.org. 129 00:12:04,280 --> 00:12:08,520 Today's show was contributed by a HBR this night like yourself, 130 00:12:08,520 --> 00:12:15,960 if you ever thought of recording podcast, you click on our contribution to find out how easy it means. 131 00:12:15,960 --> 00:12:21,400 Hosting for HBR has been kindly provided by an onsthost.com, 132 00:12:21,400 --> 00:12:27,800 the internet archive and our synced.net. On the satellite stages, today's show is released on 133 00:12:27,800 --> 00:12:36,760 our creative comments, attribution for going to international license.